London
by cinderella200
Summary: Hermione finds exactly who she's been looking for, two years after she stops looking for him. Post War. Slightly dark undertones, but I'm a hopeless romantic at heart.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N- This has been up for a while, but after looking at it again, I took it down to edit, as there were a lot of things I was unhappy about. It was originally going to be a three-part story, but I've decided to make it five parts instead, for clarity's sake. Three parts are up so far, please do review if you read it, it's probably my favourite thing I've ever written. Thanks.**

**Part 1.  
**

The solitary do not thrive in London. If you wander down the veritable labyrinth of back streets you will realize there is a small niche of time, when the busy, bustling city seems uncannily quiet…in the very dead of the night, when the only souls out seem to be those who have no choice; those who wish to be elsewhere. It is most unwise to wander through the streets at this time, and the only refuge will doubtless be an unsavoury- looking bar, its neon sign half-alight, a veritable magnet for the less desirable clientele of the night.

She has no reason to be out at this time. She has a home to go to, a prettily decorated flat, with tasteful furniture and good books. Although she is fairly unremarkable looking, she is not ugly, and she is well dressed, with a natural elegance which cannot be imitated or learnt. Ladies of her stature and nature do not walk alone at this time of night, they do not walk alone at all, and that is why, when she steps into the bar, the few customers watch her with detached curiosity.

She is used to feeling like she does not belong, but she still feels an uncomfortable prickling creeping up her spine as the blush begins to stain her cheeks. She is thankful for the darkness, and when the barman inquires her poison, she cannot help but reply in the softest, least conspicuous voice she can manage.

She does not like to be noticed.

He, on the other hand, is a dab hand at night- time solitude. When he enters the bar, the barman knows exactly what drink to pour him, and he knows better than to ask for payment. He will pay when he leaves, for all of his drinks in one transaction, and he will do it with the cold indifference of a man who has all the money he will ever need, but nothing else.

She is not comfortable, sitting so close to this man who seems so at home, in a place so alien to her. She wants to move, to take her drink, and slide into one of the booths in the corner, where she can be alone with her morbid and desperate thoughts, but she does not want to be obvious. Despite her discomfort, she does not want to offend; she still has remnants of her child- like eagerness to please. So she resolves to remain seated at the bar until she finishes the first glass… once she orders her second she will move.

He drains his tumbler of whisky in one, and silently requests another. The barman does not tell him to slow down, because he has watched this young man down 8 straight whiskeys and walk out without so much as a single stumble. Unusual for a man so thin, but not extraordinary, and so the barman does not comment; he knows the young man will not get drunk or cause trouble, and that is his only concern.

She recognises him first.

It is difficult to make out faces in the dimly lit room, but when she raises her eyes to ask for her second glass, she notices the angular jaw, and quickly looks down again. She does not want to be accused of staring, and she thinks maybe the wine has gone to her head. When she looks up again, surveying him through her lashes, she notes the slanting cheekbones, and the unmistakeable slight curve of his mouth.

_Set in a permanent sneer._

To forget that sneer would be to forget the past five years, and to forget the past five years would be to forget who she is. She watches him now, unashamedly, and with no pretences. She wants him to note her lack of decorum, because then he will realize. She does not know what will happen if he realizes who she is, she is filled with a mixture of dread and anticipation. She, with all her intelligence and intuition, does not have the faintest idea how he will react, and yet, she continues to stare, recklessly, goading. She plays a game with herself, a taunting, childish game, which she would have sneered at five years ago. I'll count to a hundred, she thinks. If he hasn't looked up by the time I count to a hundred, then it's a sign, and I'll leave. One, two, three, four…

The young woman is staring. He feels her eyes, he's always been so keenly attuned to people around him, he's always known eyes upon him, and he knows she is looking. He stares into the bottom of his nearly- empty tumbler, wondering whether she is staring at him out of curiosity or attraction, or maybe something different altogether. He has had female attention in the past, lonely young women who frequent these places, and he has taken them home before, he has given them all he can, and then he has woken up to an empty bed the next morning. They, like him, are only looking for a temporary release, and he is always relieved to wake up to no-one. He doesn't know what he'd do if one of these restless and damaged women were to still be there in the morning. He'd probably ask them to leave.

Thirty six, thirty seven, thirty eight…

He doesn't see sex as anything more than a release of tension, a way of venting his frustration. The idea of "making love" is an alien concept to him these days. The women he takes home are attractive, yes, delicate, fragile things who, like him, are no longer filled with any of the optimism which gives people the capacity to fall in love. They tend to approach him, or make their intentions clear. Clearer than just staring anyway.

Fifty eight, fifty nine, sixty…

He has not looked at her yet, and she begins to feel a cold fist tighten in her chest. The idea of walking out at a hundred, of leaving without a single word, terrifies her more than anything else, but she has made this deal with herself, and she has fallen victim to enough broken promises to realize if you cannot keep a promise to yourself then you may as well give up on everything. And so she resolves to do as she promises, and in the meantime, as she counts, she prays.

Seventy two, seventy three, seventy four…

He decides that he has not released tension for a while, and so if this woman is willing and interested, then he will oblige her.

Seventy nine, Eighty, Eighty one…

He knocks back the last of his whiskey and shudders, hoping she is attractive enough for him to take home now. He'd rather not drink any more tonight.

Eighty five, eighty six, eighty seven…

He raises his eyes, and looks straight at her face.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2.**

He does not react immediately. No exclamation of surprise or delight, no double take, no gasp. Nothing which would give away his recognition. He just looks, makes eye contact, and holds it.

She is equally cold in her reception. Given her anticipation, this is unexpected, but when he raises those stormy eyes to look at her she finds she has nothing to say, nothing to do, and her mind goes blank. She realises she may have made a mistake in staying, as she is unsure where exactly to go from here. There is too much history, too much back-story, there is a gulf as wide as an ocean between the two of them, filled with potential landmines. So much cannot be said, she does not know where to step, and she realises she has entered no mans land.

He lowers his eyes, and to her intense surprise, laughs softly at his glass. It is a horrible laugh, a soft, humourless, empty sound, which sinks through her and chills her spine. He isn't supposed to laugh like that, people don't laugh like that anymore…the cynicism of the war has left them, they are meant to laugh heartily these days, and his dry, unamused laughter scares her slightly.

"What?" she demands, and the word is out of her mouth before she can stop it. She feels mildly irritated that he is not displaying a more emotive response to seeing her, and she cannot hide the note of aggravation in her voice.

He looks back up at her, slight surprise on his features, holds her gaze, and eventually shrugs. "Its just funny…I didn't think anyone would find me here. And who should walk in and sit themselves down…it's only Hermione fucking Granger."

"I was here first actually." she snaps, and immediately berates herself. When did she become so childish? When did she become so petty? Of course, she has not become either of those things, it is her proximity to him that brings out all these irritating characteristics, and of course she is aware of that. In some closed-off, shut away part of her mind, she is fully aware of his effect on her, but the rest of her brain, her practicality, her logic, her reasoning overpowers this part, and instead she just feels angry with herself for being so immature.

He does not even register her retaliation, he is too occupied with analysing her appearance. She looks different, but not in the way expected. Her face has hardly aged over the three years, but there is something in the eyes…a distinct lack of the old sparkle, that saddens him. She no longer seems to have the demeanour of a woman who could flare up passionately at any moment… instead, she seems rather like a wilted flower. She _has_ grown, she has a willowy figure now, something he could have predicted easily, and her hair, while still not groomed, has lost its childish messiness. She is unremarkable, and at the same time, wholly extraordinary, a mass of contradictions which corresponds with his personality uncannily. This innate sense of compatibility terrifies him, and he does not want to be here, he does not want to have to sit and talk to Hermione Granger, because unlike every other aspect of his lonely and mundane life, if he chooses to converse with her, he cannot predict the outcome.

She thinks he may have lost weight. She cannot be sure, his frame has always been veering slightly on the right side of skinny, but she thinks there may be a gauntness in his face which was not there before… a slight lack of healthiness which flares up the protective nature in her. Part of her immediately wants to take him home and feed him, look after him until he loses this emaciated look and returns to his old self. Of course, this is a pipe dream, a nonsensical fantasy, as she is fully aware there is no going back for anybody after the war. They have all been irrevocably changed, some more than others, but all of them to noticeable extents. She is even aware how different she is, how lost she is now, but she will not confront this horrible truth, because she would rather pretend that things are normal. And so she does not take him home, and feed him and look after him. Instead, she chooses to ask him the first, and only question she can think of; the only question that matters.

"Where have you been?"

He is mildly surprised by her audacity, but only mildly. Nothing really surprises him anymore. He ponders his answer for a moment, knowing that the longer he waits, the more infuriated she will become; a past habit rearing its head once more now he has seen her.

"Around."

She does not snap "Draco!" in an irritable, motherly like way, or roll her eyes in an annoyed fashion, or even berate him for his ambiguous answer. Instead, she sighs, and nods.

"Ok." her voice is soft, barely above a whisper, and her eyes fall back down to her wine glass. This reaction, or lack of it, has a stronger effect on him than any reprimand would have done. He cannot believe she will not pursue the subject further, part of him is offended that his whereabouts over the last three years do not interest her enough for her to push the question. But more than the mild feeling of being snubbed, he feels scared; scared for her. She was always the one to ask the questions, to push subjects to their limit, her thirst for knowledge was an aspect of her personality which simultaneously fascinated and infuriated him. The fact she seems to have given up so easily is so uncharacteristic of her, that he is compelled to offer up more information, simply in the hope it will fire up her curiosity.

He opens his mouth to elaborate, but closes it abruptly. He can feel the barman watching them while he cleans a glass, his curiosity piqued, at this strange, elegant woman who is talking to one of his regulars.

"Come over here." Draco moves to a small booth, the exact one she was planning on sitting at once she ordered her second drink, and she follows him wordlessly. She can feel her heart in her throat, an odd mixture of fear and delight envelops her as she realises they are about to have a conversation which she has been dreading and imagining and longing for all at once, since the war ended. She sits down opposite him, her face the picture of tranquillity, no betrayal of the storm of emotions beneath, and waits for him to continue, a mask of mild interest her only invitation. She has grown adept at hiding her feelings over the years, so adept that there are times she is unsure which feelings are real, and which are for show.

He waves at the barman, requesting more drinks, and looks at her for a moment.

"I've just been… y'know." he shrugs listlessly at her, and wonders what one earth to say to this woman, this strange woman who he could once talk to for hours about nonsense and rubbish without a single thought. He is still young really, he does not know of the effect time can have, he is still wildly naïve to the bizarre nature of love and the odd spells and conditions it can weave upon the mind. He does not understand why he finds it so hard to speak to her, and yet he does.

However, he is nothing if not reasonable… he, like her, has always used logic in the face of a problem, and he is nothing if not consistent in his methods. And reasonably, he should be able to talk to her.

"I've been staying at that old flat we used for HQ, near Baker Street." he says slowly. "It's a bit of a state, but it's alright."

There is a pause, while she takes in the sparse information he has offered, and he realises abruptly the real reason he is unable to tell her of his recent activities; he is embarrassed, embarrassed that instead of ploughing on like the rest of them, instead of pushing through and trying to rebuild, he simply abandoned his kind and exiled himself. He is ashamed that after all the fighting, and the lives lost, the sacrifices made, he has not bothered to try and rebuild what is left.

"What have you been _doing_, though?"

"Nothing, really." he answers without thinking, and the feeling of disgust increases to an unbearable level; he feels as though he is choking on his own shame, like bile rising up into his throat, a cold, hard, iron fist clamping around him and suffocating him. He flounders, flails, tries to think of something to say to take the attention away from himself, to save himself-

"What about you?"

She seems a little surprised by his question, or maybe it is his answer to her previous one that has left her a little taken- aback. Either way, in true Hermione fashion, she recovers herself swiftly, and responds-

"Just working… helping at St Mungo's." She wants to elaborate, but finds she cannot; like him, an inexplicable emotion has taken control and she finds she does not know what to say.

The barman has brought them their drinks, and as she watches the pale yellowish liquid swirl into her glass, she feels something inside her break down, a dam collapsing in on itself, she cannot stop the torrent that falls from her lips the moment the barman walks away.

"I didn't know what to do when you left." she breathes. If she does not say this now, she never will, and it will kill her, it will eat away at her, if she never sees this wonderful, beautiful man again, and cannot tell him what he has done to her, how he has changed her.

"I thought you'd died at first. Then I got that owl, that stupid, _stupid_ letter that didn't even make any _sense_, and I realised you weren't coming back. Do you know what I did when I realised? Do you know what I did? I went to Ron's grave. I went and told him everything, I told him he'd been right about you, that you were a bastard, an evil, horrid bastard, and then I went and did the same at Harry's. And then I went home, and I cried."

She stops to breathe, and looks up at his face. He is stunned, stunned and disturbed, and she has never been able to read his expression so easily. She waits for a response, her impatience bubbling up inside her, rearing its head up eventually-

"Well? Are you going to say anything?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Part 3.**

The silence stretches between them, heavy and dense as a fog. She feels physically drained, as though she has been running, running without a break for the last three years and she has finally paused for breath. There is an iron fist clamped around her heart, its rusted knuckles dragging its way across her chest and throat, relentless, and it will not stop grating until he speaks.

"I didn't want to come back."

The sentence leaves his mouth before he can stop it, before he even realises it has formed. Her dark head snaps up, momentarily stunned at the bluntness of the statement, the coldness of it. Draco recovers himself swiftly, holding her gaze with the air of someone who has nothing left to lose.

"I didn't want to come back and deal with it all. Everything that happened afterwards… I read the Prophet, I saw how everything went to shit-"

"It's better now!"

"Yeah, now. But then… god Hermione, it was bollocks. The mourning, the grief… all of it just sent me mental. And the Ministry was so fucked up and hanging by a thread… there didn't seem to be anything left…"

She is trembling a little, anger and sadness combined into a fragile, yet highly combustible being, and he feels this rather than sees it… her emotions are palpable, and he realises how his last sentence must have sounded to her.

"I don't mean-"

"It doesn't matter."

"Mione, listen-"

"Please don't call me that."

He stops short, hurt and slightly embarrassed.

"I… I'm so, so sorry. I'm just… I'm so fucking sorry Hermione. I couldn't though… not after everything."

His voice breaks now, for the first time in three years, he lets a crack appear in his unbreakable demeanour, and she watches him, half- scared, half- fascinated by what she is seeing.

His hands drag themselves across the smooth oak surface of the tabletop to grip his glass, and she notices how the slightly dirty crystal catches the tiniest glimmer from the strip light feebly shining above them, casting a semi- luminescent glow across his face, while his hands trace circles around the rim of the glass.

He is beautiful.

None of his youth remains, or his almost electric energy, but left in its place is a sadness so palpable it is beautiful, in its own twisted way. She always found herself utterly absorbed by his paler than pale skin and smoke-coloured eyes… such a contrast to her typical colouring. She was just so boring compared to him, but when she was with him, back then…. she had felt anything but boring. She had felt gorgeous, and powerful and confident and suddenly, while watching him nervously play with his drink, something flickers inside her.

"Draco…" her voice is quieter than even she expects, she cannot believe what she is about to say, it goes against every instinct in her body, screaming at her to reconsider, to be practical, there are still questions to ask, stories to tell…

Hermione Granger is never practical when Draco is concerned.

"Come back to my house."

His hands freeze in their pointless meander around the rim of his glass, the only movement that betrays the fact he has heard her… his expression remains neutral, calm… just on the other side of bored, the edge of disinterest, but she knows him far too well to take him at face value. She knows him far too well to take his outer appearance into consideration that much.

She knows him far too well to take him anywhere.

And yet, here she is, throwing caution to the wind. She waits, her demeanour as calm as his, whilst a multitude of feelings coarse through her body so violently she can almost physically feel them, like blood, pumping through her veins at such a speed she feels she might faint.

"Ok."

A breath she does not realise she is holding slowly leaves her mouth, and as he looks up at her she thinks, maybe imagines, the ghost of a smirk dance across his features.

They rise from the table at the exact same moment, and he follows her out into the cold night air; he does not feel the change in temperature. Every fibre of his being is focused on the woman in front of him, as she walks with her head bowed slightly, almost as though in prayer.

"Is it nearby?"

"Ten minutes." she replies, and they walk, in silence, down a few small streets before coming to a main road, and setting off along it. Late night revellers are beginning to trickle out of the last few remaining clubs, they are exhausted and drunk, some of them drugged up to the eyeballs, and they watch with curiosity as the well turned- out girl and boy walk past in carefully constructed silence.

They reach her flat soon enough, and as he follows her up the stairs, he notes how she has not directly looked at him since they left the bar, whereas he… he can barely tear his eyes away from her. Her dark unruly curls, her willowy figure, the soft navy jersey of her dress gently skimming her body.

As she walks into her spotless little kitchen, she suddenly feels stupid. So very, utterly _stupid. _What is she doing, bringing this man back to her flat? What did she think would happen? That they would talk more? That she would finally get some solid answers, some scorching insight into his character? Why on earth, she demands of her self angrily, would tonight be any different? Why would the years between their last meeting change anything? She had been closer to him than anybody during the war, or so she thought, and he still hadn't ever quite let her in completely.

Stupid girl.

Some of her fury with herself must show on her face, because when she looks up, Draco is watching her with a detached curiosity mingled with something else… some emotion she cannot quite define, something between anxiousness and amusement.

"Do you want a drink?"

He regards her for a moment, and for a split second she feels rather like a servant being surveyed by a prince. How ridiculous, she thinks sharply. Pull yourself together.

But something has happened now. They are no longer in the gritty bar, with the curious barman, and the drowsy, hopeless patrons. Those faceless, nameless people who were somehow providing her with the sort of protection no one else could; the invincible protection of strangers. With them, she felt a façade of normality had to be created, and now, alone, there is no one to hide their bizarre, painful intensity from.

Without an audience, she cannot play the part.

He shakes his head slowly, deliberately. "No." he whispers.

She isn't sure how it happens, she will never be able to recall the events clearly, perhaps because the wine has gone to her head more than she realises, or perhaps because she is so lost in her own thoughts she cannot process what is happening. But somehow, she finds herself standing in front of him, looking up into his pained, wonderful face, and she feels completely and utterly lost.

"I don't want to talk anymore."

His lips are on hers in a second, not the fierce, crushing kiss she was expecting, half- hoping for, but something else altogether, slow, careful, controlled.

He is still holding back.

She hates him for it, hates him for not simply throwing caution to the wind the same way they did all those years ago at Grimmauld Place when he first joined them. When he would not talk to anyone for weeks other than to be rude, until he found some books of hers. They stayed up late, every night that week, arguing and talking about all of those books, until one night, when he had bid her good night in his usual dismissive manner, before suddenly taking her hand as she rose to leave, and kissing her with all the intensity of a 18 year old falling in love for the first time.

He will not kiss her like that any more, he is not sure he can, not sure he is capable of that sort of emotion, that level of intensity which youth and hope brings with it.

She is scared to touch him at first, terrified of this boy, who is both a stranger and a kindred spirit, but she is brave, she has always been brave, and she raises a hand to brush against his cheek and into his hair. His hands grip her at her waist, pulling her against him, as her other arm wraps itself around his neck, steadying herself against him.

She did not think she would ever hold him again.

His kisses are still too controlled, too calm, she cannot hold back the way he can, the classic difference between Slytherin and Gryffindor. She catches his bottom lip between hers and he lets out a low, barely audible groan before pushing her against the worktop and dragging his lips down her throat, and back to her mouth.

He is trying so very hard to stay in control, all the while knowing how utterly fruitless his efforts will be. If he is honest with himself, he knew he had absolutely no chance of maintaining his composure from the moment he walked into her flat, yet he still came, and that is because despite everything, he is, and always will be, a fool when it comes to Hermione Granger.


End file.
